Joseph gets the hard news that his fiancee, Mary is pregnant. What should he do? He loves Mary and doesn’t want to hurt her, but this is hard. Joseph has a plan, until he meets an angel, and his plans change, and his understanding of what love means does too.
One of the core ways and places that we are called to express our love to others is through hospitality, which means the love of the stranger. We are to open our homes and lives to others, such that they experience the love of Christ through us and where we live.
At church we are called a covenant community, a community who thrives when its people look out for the well-being of one another. Romans 12 paints a picture of what this life in community, driven by the love of Christ, looks like; selfless, humble, passionate, grounded in Christ, and seeking the good of others in the community through active service and engagement.
This might be a characteristic of the Spirit that we need the most to remind us about: freedom. We all have woundings, struggles, and addictions that we face, and scripture promises that the Spirit at work in us can provide a freedom that we are not able to find anywhere else.